Productivity Advice is Backwards; Here’s How to Actually Get Somewhere Fast

Why goals are counter-productive

It’s not hard to imagine the ideal life for yourself and map out the steps to achievement.

What is hard is getting yourself to follow that map and do the work.

The struggle is real. You assume there must be a better way.

So begins the search for ways to make yourself do more in less time, stumbling longingly into the arms of mainstream productivity advice.

I’m most guilty of this. Trying every fad there is to hack my way to achievement.

But it doesn’t work, because that’s not how productivity works.

Productive people aren’t productivity nerds

The people I know that get the most done are the people that spend the least amount of time attempting to be productive. They don’t obsess over the most productive routines, the earliest starts and the coldest showers.

Yet somehow they’re able to produce beautiful work and tonnes of it.

They appear on the surface to be brimming with enviable talent that has no limit. In most cases, talent is a byproduct of their work ethic.

The way they approach their toil makes productivity guaranteed. Not because they focus on it, but because they don’t give it a second thought.

Truly productive people realise being productive is a consequence of how they apply themselves, not their ultimate aim.

Goals are a real buzzkill

The mainstream advice is simple: set goals, then follow the steps required to fulfil them.

Seems straightforward and reasonable in theory right? I’m sure you know, not as easy in practice.

Goals serve as a target to aim at. They’re ideals. They are desirable destinations to reach. Destinations that are far more desirable than where you are at present. Goals are idols.

As a result of concentrating on them, you come to feel even more dissatisfied with where you currently stand on the ladder of progress.

By this framework, the only incentive for doing work now is the potential for gratification later.

As you set out to achieve goals, progress is often subtle. You may be inching closer and closer, but in relation to the grand achievement, feel like you haven't left the starting gate. Or worse.

No matter where you are in your journey, you’ve not yet succeeded. Which is a real motivation killer.

Goals aren't completed by marching locked eyes towards the prize but by tiny, consistent improvements daily.

When the goal is the focus, the actions required to reach it become a means to an end.

Goals sabotage progress by sucking the joy out of the process.

Sure, being able to delay gratification is an immensely important skill to cultivate. Humans are the most skilled of animals in sacrificing the present for a better future. We are still animals though. Basing your hopes of productivity on your ability to postpone your happiness, day in and day out, is unsustainable.

There has to be some instant gratification in the nitty-gritty of daily work for you to keep coming back.

Doing for doing’s sake

If you can put all of your energy into the doing, you don’t have to worry about achieving goals, they will achieve themselves.

This is the logic of James Clear, it is your systems that are responsible for making real progress.

But how do you fall in love with systems without them continuing to feel like a means to an end?

The Philosopher Kieren Setiya differentiates activities by splitting them into two groups.

Telic activities and atelic ones.

Telic activities, derived from the word Telos coined by Aristotle to mean ‘purpose’ or ‘aim’, are all those tasks we do to get them done. I do the laundry so I have clean clothes, and I buy groceries in order to have food to eat.

Atelic activities are the things we do for the sake of the activity itself. They have no external aim, they’re done for their intrinsic reward. Think, playing sport socially, talking with a friend or listening to music you love.

When goals are given importance, all required steps fall into the telic category.

If you can forget the goal and approach the current step as something you would do anyway, the pressure is off, the activity can become atelic.

Which is more enjoyable? going for a walk for the sake of it, or because you need to be somewhere?

Here’s the trick. What makes an activity telic or atelic is not set in stone. It’s really just our attitude towards each task.

If you feel like you're only doing something to get something else you enjoy the activity less, you rush it or wish it to end sooner. If instead, you can shift your mindset slightly, to do the activity for the hell of it, suddenly it becomes much more rewarding.

Productivity is no longer your focus, you are now devoted to working on the task at hand for as long as it takes. You become productive inadvertently.

The ‘in order to’ mind

The reclassifying of telic activities to atelic ones is a way of cultivating your ability to enjoy doing whatever it is you have to do.

It is the subtle shift that comes when you change the thought from ‘having to do’, to ‘getting to do’.

There is a pithy Zen Koan that subtly illustrates this shift in attitude;

“Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.”

Every mundane task you would ordinarily do in order to get done can benefit from this recalibration. It is the nuanced adjustment that is not only the secret of overachievers but also of people who simply enjoy their lives.

Every step has their full attention. They relish the activity in the moment. They‘re absorbed by it.

Instead of doing things to get them out of the way, do them to do them.

The meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein refers to this phenomenon as the in order to mind. We are forever wanting whatever it is we are doing to be over so we can get on to the next thing. Rendering every project we engage in unsatisfying by adding expectations and impatience to the equation.

If you can notice when you’re performing a duty in order to get somewhere else, see if you can’t find something in that activity worth doing — even without the promise of future reward.

Productivity as a side-affect

Goals can be used as a compass, to know which port you’re sailing to. They can set your bearings. Realise that you won't reach your destination until the end of the voyage.

Focus instead on giving yourself over to the process. Fully immersing yourself in the task at hand, forgetting the ultimate goal and enjoying doing for doing’s sake. This is a prerequisite for any form of flow state. Focusing on the outcome only makes the blank page more anxiety-inducing.

Becoming absorbed in the job at hand and getting lost in the work, without the pressure of completing, always creates better results.

By acting in this way, achievement stacks up without effort. The reward of completion is no longer the incentive, therefore success comes much easier and with less strain.

Before long, you will be showered by the fruits of all your well-spent time.